A Pinterest Perfect House

Ok, it’s about to get real honest up in here for a second, so buckle your seatbelts and hang on for dear life. Today, I’m talking about the dreaded, green eyed jealousy monster, the perfectly framed, the ever clean, the just-enough-throw-pillows-to-look-like-a-cloud, the Pinterest Perfect House. 

I started pinning house pictures on Pinterest the second I got a Pinterest account. It’s almost a given that little girls (or boys) dream of two things. Planning their wedding, and playing house. I’ve been planning both since I was a kid, even designing house layouts and creating blueprints in crayon just how big my adjoining horse stables would be to my mansion. Ask my mother, and she’ll tell you. I had it all planned out. Big library, big horse barn, big kitchen with a giant island in the middle and all the counter-space a girl could ever hope to dream of.

And before I had pinterest, all I knew was that I wanted a big house and all the good things life could offer. Once I started pinning though, suddenly I knew exactly what shade I wanted my bathroom tiles to be, because I’d pinned 37 pictures of the exact shade of “mermaid teal” I wanted.

Now, there’s a massive difference between pinning and dreaming things up, and turning them into a reality. And reality, sometimes, isn’t as pinnable as we want it to be. It’s hard because we want nice things. I want nice things. And as a blogger, that pressure feels even more heavy. I see those pins on pinterest and I know that those kitchen counters aren’t just a fantasy. Someone owns those kitchen counters and gets to bake in that perfect gorgeous oven. And if someone else can have all those nice things, then why can’t I?

With Instagram and Facebook and especially Pinterest, it’s fantastically easy to feel like my house isn’t good enough. My stuff isn’t good enough. My kitchen counters aren’t good enough, and most importantly, that my LIFE isn’t good enough. Wanting nice things isn’t bad. It honest to God isn’t. But somewhere that jealousy somehow turns from being envious of other people’s things, to instead wanting other people to be envious of my things. Instead of just wanting better or nicer stuff, I instead want to be the one that people are jealous of. I’ve thought it, I won’t lie. I’ve wanted people to see my house and my stuff and life and be jealous. And isn’t that just the worst kind of pride?

This past year as a blogger hasn’t been easy. It’s been a huge struggle to try and move away from that pride. To move away from the jealousy monster and to instead create a house and a life that I love. That I enjoy. But for me. Not for anyone else. Not because I want people to be jealous of my life, but because I love my life, and want to share it with others. To be proud of my decorating skills or my DIY chalkboard. Not so someone can swoon over it on Pinterest, but instead because I enjoy having a nice house and nice things and because I love to create.

So here we are, having moved into a new apartment and a new space of living. I would like to think that I’m moving into a new head space too. A place where instead of focusing on what I’m lacking or what I think makes a good “pinnable” house, I focus on the things that make me happy. That make me appreciate what I already have.

When I was little I dreamed of house with a library. I dreamed of shelf after shelf of books, where I could completely lose myself. I have that now. And I forget how lucky I am to own so many books. A collective conglomerate of novels and literature, comics and theology. I’m lucky enough to have married someone with as a big a book collection as me, and someone who enjoys getting lost in a book as much as I do. I have a beautiful life. A full and wonderful life, and I never EVER want to lose that focus. I never want to be so caught up with having a Pinterest Perfect house with a Pinterest Perfect library, that I forget to even read and enjoy that beautiful collection of books right down the hall.

This post is much less about me trying to drive home a point with my readers, and much more about me sharing something that I’ve been learning that past year. I should probably say “continuing to learn” since this isn’t a concept I’ve mastered yet. I still have plenty of moments when I stare longingly at my screen, wishing for someone else’s counter tops. But it’s a journey. One baby step at a time.

Now if you’ll please excuse me, I have some books that need reading.